I
must be honest. When reading this play, it was very disturbing to me.
From research before reading the play, I discovered this was
Shakespeare’s first tragedy he wrote. For his first tragedy, it had
many elements that were disturbing. Subjects of rape, murder and
cannibalism were constant throughout the play. The thing that stood
out to me the most in this play was the constant subject of violence.
There was so much violence. By the end of the play, almost everyone
dies. When reading a play, I like to pick out something that stood
out the most to me. With this play, that was hard to do. The rape
mutilation of Lavinia was very graphic. After Demetrius and Chiron
rape her, they cut off her tongue and hands so she cannot tell anyone
who did this to her. Visualizing that really affected me. When
Lavinia took a stick and wrote in the dirt who did these vile things
to her, I was visualizing that. That’s one thing about this play. I
was visualizing the violence strongly. Murder was a constant subject.
At the beginning, Titus kills Alarbus. Tamora and Aaron have
Demetrius and Chiron kill Bassianus. Aaron kills the nurse. Quintius
and Lucius get beheaded. Titus cuts the throats of Demetrius and
Chiron, then kills his daughter, then Tamora. Saturninus kills Titus.
Lucius kills Saturninus. The play ends with Lucius putting Aaron to
death. There is so much death. Why do all these people have to die?
Then there was the grinding and baking of Demetrius and Chiron’s
bones for Tamora to eat? Those scenes made my skin crawl. Another
note, when reading this play, I was constantly picturing Anthony
Hopkins at Titus and Jessica Lange as Tamora.
If
I had to pick one theme for this play, it would be revenge. So many
people in this play want revenge. First, Tamora wants revenge on
Titus. Then the violent acts that her and Aaron have Tamora’s sons
do create an element of revenge for Titus and his family. In my eyes,
revenge starts in the play with Tamora, and ends with revenge for
Titus. This is a strong theme in the play.
It’s
hard to believe this play was written over 500 years ago. In today’s
culture, I could not visualize a play like this being performed. That
being said, to me, that means it should be performed today more than
ever, to disturb people and open their eyes to another era. Today, it
would be hard to imagine a character being raped, mutilated, and
later killed. I can’t see a modern play where main characters take
joy in having people killed like Aaron does. Many things in this play
are not appropriate for today’s times. I think that’s why
someplace should have the courage to perform a play like this.
Aaron
was so evil in this play. Even in death, he regrets not being able to
be even more evil. That came across as haunting to me. Aaron is also
the only black character in the play. Does this symbolize something?
When reading this, I was wondering with Shakespeare making the only
black character evil and taking joy in his evil deeds, that had to
symbolize something. I just don’t know what it symbolized.
When
reading Titus Andronicus, it came across to me like an epic story.
Each of the 5 acts continued a storyline with such a range of acts
that I felt I was reading a mini-series. The family element was
strong in this play. The family bonds of Titus, Tamora and Saturninus
stood out. Family, revenge, and death were the things that stood out
most to me when reading this. It would be easy to do an analysis on
each of those subjects in this play. I enjoyed reading a disturbing
play like this. It made my skin crawl and made me think.
